Women Born Transsexual

More evidence that republicans are Nazi Scum.

From The New York Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/south-dakota-transgender.html

In South Dakota and other states, lawmakers are considering bills that would restrict access to hormone treatment and surgeries for young transgender people.

By Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith
Jan. 27, 2020

From Media Matters:  https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/terfs-claimed-they-were-being-censored-they-found-safe-space-right-wing-media-2019

Outlets like Fox News often feature trans-exclusionary radical feminists to demean trans people and cry censorship

Brianna January
12/22/19

Anti-trans activists known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs, spent 2019 complaining that media have “censored” and “silenced” them, but in reality, they were granted a large platform dozens of times throughout the year in right-wing media.

TERFs have historically opposed trans-inclusive measures and refused to accept the identities of trans folks. They identify as liberal or feminist, sometimes referring to themselves as “gender-critical” or “radical feminists,” and generally do not associate themselves with the term TERFs.

TERFs cry media censorship

TERFs have asserted that media outlets refuse to feature them and and their transphobia. For example, on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, Kara Dansky complained that they are “generally subjected to a media blackout” and that “many of us cannot get a voice on this issue in most media.” Dansky is a board member of the TERF organization Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF).

WoLF member Julia Beck had previously mirrored this sentiment on the same program, saying, “Women have been speaking out about this for decades, but we have been effectively silenced. Many women, like myself, have been pushed out of spaces that we built, spaces that are intended to include us, simply because we acknowledge biological reality.” Beck was removed from Baltimore’s LGBTQ Commission in 2018 after other members became aware of her anti-trans positions.

TERFs have similarly claimed to be unfairly silenced and banned from social media platforms for their anti-trans rhetoric, and right-wing media often propagate these narratives. For example, Meghan Murphy, who founded the TERF blog Feminist Current, is suing Twitter after she was banned from the platform for intentionally misgendering trans people. Deadnaming is the act of calling a transgender person by the name given to them at birth which they no longer use or identify with, and it is a violation of Twitter’s hateful conduct policy.

Right-wing media widely covered Murphy’s lawsuit after she posted a YouTube video about the ban, with pieces in Quillette, The Federalist, National Review, The Daily Wire, Townhall, Spectator, LifeSiteNews, the Washington Examiner, and The Daily Caller.

Fox News gives TERFs a large cable platform to espouse anti-trans rhetoric

Fox News is a safe space for TERFs and elevates their anti-trans rhetoric to a large audience. In 2019, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson hosted TERFs at least four times to discuss trans people. He even offered Dansky an open invitation to his program, saying, “Boy, you’re always welcome on this show.”

Some notable appearances by TERFs on Carlson’s program in 2019 include the following:

Beck appeared on February 12 and pushed the thoroughly debunked myth that trans-inclusive policies will allow “predatory men … to gain access to women’s single-sex spaces” and threaten the safety of women.

Continue reading at: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/terfs-claimed-they-were-being-censored-they-found-safe-space-right-wing-media-2019

From NBC News:  https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/media-s-detransition-narrative-fueling-misconceptions-trans-advocates-say-n1102686

They say the current narrative makes “transition regret” seem more common than it is and contributes to misconceptions about transgender people in general.

By Liam Knox
Dec. 19, 2019

In early October, the United Kingdom’s SkyNews ran a story about the “Detransition Advocacy Network,” a new charity founded by Charlie Evans, a former transgender man who detransitioned in 2018. Evans told SkyNews that “hundreds” of young trans people were seeking her help to return to their sex assigned at birth, and she said more resources are urgently needed for people experiencing post-transition regret.

“I’m in communication with 19- and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it,” Evans told SkyNews. “They don’t know what their options are now.”

Following SkyNews’ interview with Evans, news outlets across the U.K. and the United States covered the phenomenon of detransitioning. The BBC dedicated an hour to the topic on two of its flagship programs in late November, and right-wing outlets such as The Daily Wire and Breitbart covered the topic with an explicitly transphobic spin. New York magazine published a piece last month about another advocacy group for ex-trans people where one interviewee expressed concern that “many teenage women … have been convinced too quickly that the only solution is to change their sex.”

No one disputes that transition regret does exist and that there are trans people who return to the sex they were assigned at birth. However, trans advocates say some of the recent coverage around the topic portrays detransitioning as much more common than it actually is, fueling misconceptions about the gender transition process and painting trans people as just temporarily confused or suffering from a misdiagnosed psychological disorder. This misleading information, they say, can have serious real-world consequences, from misguided policy proposals to social stigma.

“I think the reason why detransition stories are popular in this given time is because it neatly fits into this idea that young people especially are being made to be trans,” Lui Asquith, a legal counselor for U.K.-based LGBTQ group Mermaids, told NBC News. “The media are conjuring up a panic about trans lives, and the first victims of that panic are the young people who are indirectly being told that they’re a phase.”

There are an estimated 1.4 million transgender adults in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, and the U.K.’s Government Equalities Office “tentatively” estimates there are between 200,000 and 500,000 trans people in Britain and Northern Ireland.

While the information regarding how many trans people detransition is sparse, those who work with the trans community say it is uncommon. “The actual numbers around them are significantly low,” Asquith said.

Continue reading at:  https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/media-s-detransition-narrative-fueling-misconceptions-trans-advocates-say-n1102686

From Forbes:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewareham/2019/12/21/uk-voter-reform-plans-will-prevent-trans-people-from-voting/

Jamie Wareham
Dec 21, 2019

Boris Johnson’s electoral reform plans that will require a photo ID to vote could prevent trans people from voting, say campaigners.

The bill, first announced in the October Queen’s Speech and reintroduced this week, will make voters provide ID to get their ballot paper.

But the reform suggested and welcomed by the Electoral Commission is already facing opposition from disability, youth and trans campaigners.

Speaking to me, trans and non-binary activist Jamie Windust says:

“It’s a deterrence for many people, not just trans people, as it creates a level of hostility around our democratic right to vote.”

The reform aims to tackle voter fraud, where people impersonate others. A trial in this month’s election saw 800 people turned away from voting.

But the change could have a significant impact on trans people, unable to change their legal gender who present in the gender different from what they were assigned at birth.

“Many people, like myself, don’t have passports or ID because of the very reason that we are then forced into choosing a gender identity that isn’t correct.”

The electoral reform comes at a time of high hostility towards trans people, not least in the media.

This was highlighted this week when J.K. Rowling divided opinion again, in a now long running debate in the media about trans rights.

Rowling and was called a transphobe for siding with Maya Forstater who lost her job after an employment tribunal detailed she had shared transphobic material.

At the appeal, the judge ruled on the matter of being fired for holding anti LGBT+ opinions. Judge Tayler stated, no matter Forstater’s views, she doesn’t have the right to be transphobic.

However, Rowling’s tweet suggested the case was about whether it was OK to “force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?” Adding “#IStandWithMaya”

If Forstater had won the case, it would have set a landmark ruling preventing employers from dismissing staff expressing similar views about LGBT+ rights, as the Guardian reported.

Continue reading at:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewareham/2019/12/21/uk-voter-reform-plans-will-prevent-trans-people-from-voting/

From NBC News:  https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/sex-reassignment-surgery-yields-long-term-mental-health-benefits-study-n1079911

The longer ago a transgender person’s gender-affirming surgery, the less likely they are to suffer anxiety, depression or suicidal behavior, the study suggests.

By Reuters
Nov. 11, 2019

When transgender people undergo sex-reassignment surgery, the beneficial effect on their mental health is still evident — and increasing — years later, a Swedish study suggests.

Overall, people in the study with gender incongruence — that is, their biological gender doesn’t match the gender with which they identify — were six times more likely than people in the general population to visit a doctor for mood and anxiety disorders. They were also three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants, and six times more likely to be hospitalized after a suicide attempt, researchers found.

But among trans people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery, the longer ago their surgery, the less likely they were to suffer anxiety, depression or suicidal behavior during the study period, researchers reported in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Surgery to modify a person’s sex characteristics “is often the last and the most considered step in the treatment process for gender dysphoria,” according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

Many transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals “find comfort with their gender identity, role, and expression without surgery,” but for others, “surgery is essential and medically necessary to alleviate their gender dysphoria,” according to the organization.

While the new study confirms that transgender individuals are more likely to use mental health treatments, it also shows that gender-affirming therapy might reduce this risk, coauthor Richard Branstrom of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm told Reuters Health by email.

Branstrom and colleague John Pachankis of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut found that as of 2015, 2,679 people in Sweden had a diagnosis of gender incongruence, out of the total population of 9.7 million.

That year, 9.3 percent of people with gender incongruence visited a doctor for mood disorders, 7.4 percent saw a doctor for anxiety disorders and 29 percent were on antidepressants. In the general population, those percentages were 1 percent, 0.6 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively.

Just over 70 percent of people with gender incongruence were receiving feminizing or masculinizing hormones to modify outward sexual features such as breasts, body fat distribution and facial hair, and 48 percent had undergone gender-affirming surgery. Nearly all of those who had surgery also received hormone therapy.

The benefit of hormone treatment did not increase with time. But “increased time since last gender-affirming surgery was associated with fewer mental health treatments,” the authors report.

In fact, they note, “The likelihood of being treated for a mood or anxiety disorder was reduced by 8 percent for each year since the last gender-affirming surgery,” for up to 10 years.

Continue reading at:  https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/sex-reassignment-surgery-yields-long-term-mental-health-benefits-study-n1079911

From The Seattle Times:  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/science/groundbreaking-uw-study-transgender-kids-gender-identity-is-as-strong-as-that-of-cisgender-children/

By Ryan Blethen
Dec. 9, 2019

Gender identity is as strong in transgender children as it is in cisgender children (those who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth), no matter how long a child has been treated as being a gender they don’t identify with, according to initial findings from a University of Washington study that is the largest of its kind.

The results bolster earlier UW research that has found transitioning doesn’t affect a transgender child’s sense of self.

The study also found that transgender children’s gender development mirrors that of cisgender kids.

For example, just as cisgender children tend to show interest in toys and clothes that society stereotypically associates with their gender, transgender children tend to do the same for things associated with the gender they identify as.

Even if a transgender boy’s family treated him as a girl for the first few years of his life, he will notice cues about what society expects of boys and “self-socialize” to learn how to “be” the gender he identifies as instead, said Selin Gülgöz, a postdoctoral researcher in UW’s psychology department and lead author of a paper about the study, which was published Nov. 18 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

“These children have a very clear understanding of the things assigned to the sexes,” Gülgöz said. “But it looks like, once they identify their gender, they are gravitating toward what society shows them.”

There is nuance when it comes to the influence of stereotypes, Gülgöz noted. How much girls like traditionally feminine things can vary, for instance, but researchers found that variance occurs to about the same extent in transgender girls as in cisgender girls, she said.

The UW researchers studied 822 children from the United States and Canada — 317 transgender children between the ages of 3 and 12, 189 of their cisgender siblings and 316 other cisgender children as a control group — and will follow them into adulthood.

Gülgöz said this study differs from other large studies of transgender children because all the children in UW’s study have socially transitioned to their present gender. Those children’s experiences might be expected to differ from those of children who are gender-nonconforming but haven’t transitioned, she said.

Continue reading at:  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/science/groundbreaking-uw-study-transgender-kids-gender-identity-is-as-strong-as-that-of-cisgender-children/

From HRC:  https://www.hrc.org/blog/defense-authorization-bill-should-have-ended-trans-troop-ban

By Charlotte Clymer
December 10, 2019

HRC, National Center for Transgender Equality, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), Modern Military Association of America, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, American Civil Liberties Union, and Palm Center, expressed disappointment that the final FY20 National Defense Authorization bill does not include the Speier/Brown amendment, which was previously approved by the House of Representatives in a strong bipartisan vote of 242 to 187. The language would have codified non-discrimination in our Armed Forces and ended the Trump Administration’s ban on transgender service members. They released the following joint statement:

“We are profoundly disappointed that this bipartisan amendment to end the ban on bravely serving transgender service members was not included in the final version of the FY20 National Defense Authorization Act.

Transgender troops served openly and honorably without incident for three years before this reckless ban on their service was put into place by the Trump-Pence Administration. Military leadership, medical experts, and defense budget experts have all provided evidence that the ban is without merit, costs the taxpayer, and is damaging to military readiness.

Although House and Senate Democratic leaders fought to retain this provision to end the ban, the White House, House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fought vigorously to remove it, and ultimately prevailed.

It is unconscionable that thousands of honorably serving transgender service members and their families will continue to live under the threat of discharge simply because of who they are. This ban is based on bias, not evidence, and is opposed by the American people, military experts, and elected officials across the political spectrum.

We are deeply grateful to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA), Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) for their ongoing leadership on this important issue of military readiness.” 

Currently, thousands of service member face discharge if they come out as transgender, while others see their careers at risk because they already have. The Trump Administration has refused to disclose any data on discharge proceedings under the ban.

A Gallup poll in June found that 71% of Americans support the open service of transgender people in the military, including a clear majority of the nation’s veterans.

This year, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association all released statements asserting that there is no medically valid reason to exclude transgender people from military service. Through the Palm Center, former military surgeons general released a report unequivocally dismantling the erroneous claim that transgender service members are medically unfit to serve.

Last year, under oath before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the highest-ranking officers of each branch of the military stated there is no threat to military readiness or unit cohesion by the inclusion of trans service members, nor were there any reports that the three years in which trans service members were permitted to openly serve presented any problems.